Good to see more recognition and positive action for the issue of how our justice system in Los Angeles cares for mentally ill inmates.

“Over the last month, Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey and Sheriff Jim McDonnell have pledged sweeping reforms of the justice system’s chronically poor treatment of mentally ill inmates. Advocates for the mentally ill and homeless say that the entire county system is broken. Inmates such as Carey with severe psychological diagnoses repeatedly fall through the cracks and land back on the streets, even when housing is available, they say.”

‘”Too often, homeless people with significant disabilities and health problems are just dumped back on the street, from which they cycle through the police stations, courts, jails and then back to the street — all at great cost to taxpayers as well as the health of poor people with disabilities,”‘ said retired UCLA professor Gary Blasi, a longtime Los Angeles homelessness researcher and advocate.

City Council members unanimously voted to ban the possession of firearm magazines that hold more than 10 rounds. Mayor Eric Garcetti said that he was eager to sign the measure.

“Such magazines have been “the common thread” in almost all the mass shootings that have devastated the country, from Newtown to Virginia Tech to Columbine, said Juliet Leftwich, legal director for the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. Backers of the plan said it was a small but meaningful step to minimize the bloodshed, by forcing attackers to at least interrupt their rampages to stop and reload.”

Debra Fine has joined “I Have A Dream” Foundation – Los Angeles (IHADLA), as the new CEO/Executive Director, it was announced at the National Staff Conference held in Nevada last month. Debra is a four time CEO of both private and public companies in the educational media, technology, and consumer product sectors. She has served on several nonprofit boards and was the CEO of Project-Access, a non-profit organization that supplied food, jobs and children’s education to those in low-income housing. Debra’s role as CEO/Executive Director will have an emphasis on fundraising. Fine has over 20 years of experience in strategic planning, capital raising, marketing, operations and business development/strategic alliances.

“When the Board approached me with this opportunity, I knew it was a perfect fit. I was immediately interested because of IHADLA’s mission to proactively reach children and young adults. This organization provides in school and after class tutoring, mentoring, cultural enrichment, college counseling and scholarship opportunities,” says Debra. “The organization adopts classes of at risk youth in 3rd Grade and stays with them through High School. We then grant them an $8K scholarship over four years for college. Our students have an 83% on-time graduation rate, versus the average rate of 43% for other schools in at-risk areas. 93% of our high school graduates then go on to college. IHADLA’s programs contribute to the wellbeing of these young people, getting ahead of crime, creating community safety, and breaking the cycle of poverty. We needed to take our commitment to a healthy future and next generation into our own hands. The Federal Government can only do so much. As the CEO of IHADLA.org, I will bring to the table years of experience as a Foundation CEO and concentrate my efforts on fundraising for this essential organization.”

“We are excited to introduce Debra Fine as the Chief Executive Officer of the “I Have A Dream” Foundation – Los Angeles,” said Grant F. Little, III, Chairman of the IHADLA Board of Directors. “Debra’s background in running blue chip companies and organizations, her background in raising funding, (over $100 Million) and her hard work in Children’s Education, Mental Health Reform, Services and Foundations makes her the perfect leader for IHADLA as we begin a major Capital Campaign.”

Katy Garretson, IHADLA’s previous Executive Director added, “I am so pleased that Debra Fine will be my successor, and I look forward to her bringing the incredible IHADLA services to even more at-risk youth across Los Angeles.” Garretson will be staying on with the foundation as the Sponsor of the Dreamers in Watts. Prior to her years as the CEO, Garretson had been a Mentor and served on multiple Board Committees as a volunteer. She requested a move back to a volunteer role in April, and is returning to her creative roots in the television industry.

Of course, Debra Fine remains committed to the Fineline Foundation. Improving the futures of at-risk classrooms through IHADLA gives her an opportunity to directly impact community safety in Los Angeles.

ABOUT IHADLA
The “I Have a Dream” Foundation – Los Angeles has been sponsoring students, “Dreamers,” throughout Los Angeles since 1987. The Foundation sponsors an entire grade at an inner-city, Title 1 elementary school, and stays with those students for over ten years, providing after-school and summer programs, academic and cultural enrichment, counseling services, arts instruction, mentors and tutors. Upon high school graduation, IHADLA then provides each Dreamer a last-dollar scholarship for college or career training.

There are currently four active IHADLA program sites: fifth graders in Watts, eighth and ninth graders in Inglewood, and mostly college freshman/college sophomores in East Los Angeles. IHADLA also serves over 1,000 Dreamer Graduates via alumni support and/or scholarships.

When I was 5 I would throw things and yell at night. I never told my parents that it was because I was afraid to go to bed. What happens to YOU when you sleep?

Growing up, I could just feel things more than other people. Noises were louder, smells were so strong. When people laughed I couldn’t stand the sound. They said I had sensory integration disorder.

I was able to keep it inside when I was at school so I got 4.0’s but when I’d get home I’d have to let it out. The fear that others didn’t like me.

I’ve been getting help realizing that the only thing that I can control is how I perceive things and react. Most of the time, it’s not about me. People are just people.

Childhood drawing by author

My parent’s got it and stayed committed to my growing out of always thinking about myself. I was heading down a dangerous path. It took going into a group setting where I could learn each day to live up to my morals and be with others, even when it was so uncomfortable. I’m 15. I have my whole life to live.

Sixty Minutes June 8th segment on mental illness, the failure of treatment in our country and violent crimes, including mass shootings, was very timely. This CBS 60 Minutes was a replay of their first airing September 29, 2013 sending a warning to all Americans.

Interviews with important specialists well qualified to speak about this critical issue include:
Dr. E. Fuller Torrey
Dr. Jeffrey Lieberman, who is president of the American Psychiatric Association and who runs the psychiatry department at Columbia University’s medical school.
Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart

Following is a transcript from the episode.
The correspondent is Steve Kroft. Producers are Graham Messick and Coleman Cowan.

“The past several weeks have seen another deadly outbreak of mass shootings by lone gunmen in their 20’s on or near college campuses, part of an epidemic of senseless violence that’s now occurring on a regular basis.
It’s become harder and harder to ignore the fact that the majority of the people pulling the triggers have turned out to be severely mentally ill, not in control of their faculties, and not receiving treatment. In the words of one of the country’s top psychiatrists, these were preventable tragedies, symptoms of a failed mental health system that’s prohibited from intervening until a judge determines that someone presents an “imminent danger to themself or others.”

And as we first reported last fall, the consequence is a society that’s neglected millions of seriously ill people hidden in plain sight on the streets of our cities, or locked away in prisons or jails.

There is something eerily similar about the shooters, as if they were variations of the same person. All young males, often with the same glazed expression, loners who exhibited bizarre behavior, and withdrew into their own troubled world. They’re often portrayed as villains. But Dr. E. Fuller Torrey says their deeds have much more to do with sickness and health than good and evil.

Dr. Torrey: Every person I’ve taken care of, and I’ve taken care of several hundred of these people, had a very good reason for doing what looked to be crazy behavior. But in their mind, it wasn’t crazy behavior. It was in response to something that was very logical, that their voices were telling them, or that their delusions were telling them.

Dr. Torrey is one of the most famous psychiatrists in the country, an expert on severe mental illness, and a staunch critic of the way the country deals with it.

Steve Kroft: How much of these terrible incidents that we’ve had, these mass shootings, is traceable to deficiencies in the mental health care system?

Dr. Torrey: Well, they’re directly related. About half of these mass killings are being done by people with severe mental illness, mostly schizophrenia. And if they were being treated, they would’ve been preventable.
For example, before killing 12 people at the Washington Navy Yard last September, the gunman, Aaron Alexis, told police that he was hearing voices and being bombarded by strangers with a microwave machine. If he had been transported to a psych ward, the shootings might never have happened.

In 2007, Virginia Tech student Seung-Hui Cho was behaving so irrationally that a court ordered him to seek mental health care. The order was never carried out. Cho killed himself and 32 others.
And before James Holmes dressed up as the Joker and shot 70 people in a movie theater, campus police at the University of Colorado had been warned that he was potentially violent. Holmes had been a brilliant graduate student there studying the inner workings of the brain, until something suddenly went wrong with his. Dr. Jeffrey Lieberman, who is president of the American Psychiatric Association, says it’s not that unusual.

Dr. Lieberman: You can be the most popular student, you can be the valedictorian of your class. And if you develop schizophrenia it will change the functioning of your brain and change the nature of your behavior.
Steve Kroft: You could be completely normal at age 20, perhaps a good student or a gifted student and a solid citizen, and at 21 or 22 be psychotic?
Dr. Lieberman: Absolutely.
Dr. Lieberman, who runs the psychiatry department at Columbia University’s medical school, says that schizophrenia has a genetic component and tends to run in families, affecting the way the circuits in the brain develop. You can see the structural abnormalities in a brain scan.
Dr. Lieberman: And you see people, a young adult, with a normal brain, same age with, who has schizophrenia, and you see that degenerative process has already begun.
Steve Kroft: This is really a disease of the brain. Not a disease of the mind?
Dr. Lieberman: Absolutely.
It lies dormant during childhood and usually emerges in late adolescence and early adulthood, affecting perception and judgment. People see things that aren’t there and hear voices that aren’t real.

Steve Kroft: What’s the nature of these voices and what do they say?

Dr. Lieberman: Usually it’s multiple voices, talking about them in the third person, as if they’re not there. They may be saying, “You’re a horrible person. Everybody hates you. The only way that you can justify yourself is to lash out at them.”

Steve Kroft: How strong are the voices?

Dr. Lieberman: When they’re at their worst the person can’t distinguish the voices from their illness and they think the voices are part of them, and if they tell them what to do, they’ll follow it.
Jacob Bowman: I hear a voice. It’s a man’s voice and it’s really, really deep. It’s a really deep and scary man’s voice…

Schizophrenia is more common than you might think. Several million Americans have it. 17-year-old Jacob Bowman has been struggling with it for a couple of years.

Jacob Bowman: This is basically me on a bad day, I guess. Because I can’t think straight. My thoughts are racing really, really fast.

He’s dropped out of high school, lives at home under the watchful eyes of his parents, and rarely goes out because he thinks people are trying to kill him. He spends much of his time on social media — we found him on YouTube — where he shares his world with other young people who have the same symptoms. He wants them to know that they’re not alone, and that the voices and hallucinations are not real.

Jacob Bowman: Basically all my voices I have are just thought– just voices telling me to harm myself or harm other people or kill people. And, that’s why I think I need to get on medication because I don’t want to hurt anyone. And because I know schizophrenics aren’t violent.

And he’s mostly right. The vast majority of people with schizophrenia never show any signs of violence. Mike Robertson was 19 years old and away at college when he was diagnosed three years ago.

Mike Robertson: I felt like there was people around me, like, bad people or nice people.

Steve Kroft: Even when there was nobody there.

Mike Robertson: Yeah. And that’s what really, that’s what really got to me.

Linda Doran: He told me over the phone, “I feel like I’m going insane. I swear there is a bug in my head and I just want to tear at my eyes and my skin and my scalp to get to it and get it out of there so I don’t have to hear it anymore.” Very scary.

Michael’s mother, Linda Doran, brought him back to California and got him into treatment, which consists of regular therapy sessions and daily doses of heavy duty anti-psychotic drugs that stabilize him and help control the symptoms.

They often leave him listless or groggy, which is one of the reasons people with severe mental illness often stop taking them.

Steve Kroft: A lot of people with your illness say the drugs make them feel worse. They just hate it.
Mike Robertson: Yeah. I can see that with the side effects. But it’s better than having schizophrenic symptoms.

Steve Kroft: What worries you the most?

Linda Doran: The future and the future without myself being here. Because I am Mike’s caregiver. I am his advocate. And so, if I am not here who will be?
It is a serious concern and a sobering thought, because it’s estimated that half the 7 million people in the country with schizophrenia and other forms of severe mental illness are not being treated at all.

Duanne Luckow: This is Day 10 now of my fast. So I’m feeling really, really good.

Duanne Luckow is one of them. He has spent the past three years on and off the street and in and out of jails and mental institutions, but he doesn’t acknowledge that there is anything wrong with him and has refused treatment. He’s been recording the events in his life to prove that he is sane and that the rest of the world is out to get him.

[Police Officer: Do you have a gun at home?

Duanne Luckow: Do I have a gun at my home? Yes, I have a gun at my home.
Police Officer: OK. So it’s a true statement.]

There’s a confrontation with police at his parents’ home and this full blown psychotic episode on the top of Multnomah Falls in Oregon in which he threatens to go over the side.

[Duanne Luckow: I come from the planet of Pluto! I’m here to protect this planet! I’m here to bring justice about! There is no justice. This planet is entirely corrupt! The FBI wanted to screw around with me! They didn’t want to give me my ATM cards!

Sandra Luckow: It really feels as though he’s on the edge. It’s pretty scary.

Duanne gave the footage to his sister, Sandra Luckow, a documentary filmmaker who teaches in New York.
[Duanne Luckow: May the truth be known!]

She spent years trying to help him.

Sandra Luckow: On a certain level, this would make him crazy to think that the very thing that he thinks is going to exonerate him shows how crazy he is.

She is no longer sure her brother can be helped, and has kept her distance ever since he sent her a threatening email.

Sandra Luckow: He said that someone was going to come to my apartment with an AR-15 and hollow point bullets and spatter my brains all over my apartment.

Steve Kroft: Has he ever been violent?

Sandra Luckow: Not that I know.

Steve Kroft: But you think it’s possible?

Sandra Luckow: Sure.

Fifty years ago, someone like Duanne Luckow would have ended up in a place like this, involuntarily committed to one of the big state-run hospitals that were used to warehouse the seriously mentally ill.
Documentaries like Frederick Wiseman’s “Titicut Follies” helped expose the dehumanizing conditions and led to reforms. One by one, the big asylums were shut down, and over time, a half million inmates were released into communities to fend for themselves. They were supposed to be housed in residential treatment centers, medicated, and supervised by case workers at walk-in clinics. But the programs were never adequately funded.
Dr. Torrey: What we did is we emptied out the hospitals and, on any given day now in the United States, half of the people with schizophrenia and other severe mental illnesses are not being treated.
Steve Kroft: How difficult is it to get somebody admitted who does not want to be admitted?

Dr. Torrey: Almost impossible in most states. The laws will read, “You have to be a danger to yourself or others,” in some states, and judges may interpret this very, very strictly. You know, we kiddingly say, “You have to be either trying to kill your psychiatrist, or trying to kill yourself in front of your psychiatrist, to be able to get hospitalized.”

Steve Kroft: If these people aren’t receiving medical attention, where are they ending up?

Dr. Torrey: Many of them end up homeless. Many of them end up in jails and prisons now. So this is a huge problem. Our jails and prisons are our main place now where you find mentally ill people.
In fact by some measures, the largest mental institution in the United States is the Cook County Jail in Chicago. It houses the largest number of mentally ill people in the country.

Tom Dart: This is a population that people don’t care about and so as a result of that there are not the resources out there to care for them.

Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart is in charge of the jail and he is not very happy about the situation.
Tom Dart: I’ve got probably 2,500, 2,800 people with mental illness in my jail today. And you look at their backgrounds, they’ve been in here 50, 60, 100, we have some people who’ve been in here 400 times.

Steve Kroft: What kind of offenses?
Tom Dart: Oh my God, retail theft is a norm. And usually it’s ’cause they’re stealing something either to feed themselves or, frankly, they’re stealing something because they just wanted it that second. Loads of cases of criminal trespass to land. What’s that? They’re breaking in some place to sleep.

Steve Kroft: You’re saying the prisons and the jails are the new asylums?
Tom Dart: Absolutely. There is no person that could argue otherwise that the jails and prisons are the new insane asylums. That’s what we are.

[Inmate: What the? Wait! Don’t spray me!]
Sheriff Dart has told guards and employees to videotape incidents so that he can show people what actually goes on here.

Tom Dart: And the videos we’ve shown people are to show them what happens when we take people who are mentally ill and we cram them into the criminal justice system where they’re not supposed to be. And the irony’s so deep that you have a society that finds it wrong to have people warehoused in a state mental institution, but those very same people were OK if we warehouse ’em in a jail. It’s just– you’ve got to be kidding me.

[Elli Montgomery: Were you ever diagnosed with depression or bipolar disorder?

Inmate: Yeah, a long time ago.]

Every day Elli Montgomery, one of five social workers here, goes over the list of new inmates with mental illness.

Elli Montgomery: Yeah, just this morning. Severely mentally ill. Not like a little bit of depression.
Most of them will be here for several days to several months, then released back on the street with a packet of pills and no plan. Sheriff Dart says it’s become a huge public safety issue.

Steve Kroft: There’s been an epidemic of mass shootings. A lot of them by people with serious mental health problems. Do you think there’s a connection?

Tom Dart: Yes, I do think there are connections here because people– some are getting treated. Other ones aren’t getting treated. People are falling through the cracks all the time. And so to think that that won’t then boil up at some point and end up in a tragedy, that’s just naive. That’s just naive.

Dr. Torrey: We have a grand experiment: what happens when you don’t treat people. But then you’re going to have to accept 10 percent of homicides being killed by untreated, mentally ill people. You’re going to have to accept Tucson and Aurora. You’re going to have to accept Cho at Virginia Tech. These are the consequences, when we allow people who need to be treated to go untreated. And, if you are willing to do that, then that’s fine. But I’m not willing to do that.”

There will be a remembrance service for those lost in the Santa Monica City College Mass Shooting in June 2013.

Community members and civic leaders of all faiths are invited to participate.

The purpose of the gathering is for those affected by it to heal and to discuss our common goal of peace and safety in our community from gun violence.

Debra Fine will be attending along with other survivors, families and friends of those that were lost, injured and affected.

There is a stigma in our society associated with getting help after a trauma like this. This function allows the survivors and others affected to gather together to heal. Please note that Santa Monica College has counseling services for its staff and students. Fineline Foundation offers a list of mental health resources in California that may be of help to you or someone you love.

Santa Monica College will mark the anniversary of the tragic events of June 7 as a time of remembrance, with a moment of silence to be observed in classrooms and campuses at noon on Monday, June 9.

In addition, Santa Monica community members and civic leaders are invited to join an interfaith day of healing and peace on Saturday, June 7.

Finally, as the College community collectively mourns, heals and remembers during this time of year, please be sensitive to the needs of your colleagues and students. Tragic events can affect us at unexpected times long after the event itself. Counseling services are now available for those who would like to speak with a wellness counselor.

SANTA MONICA COLLEGE REMEMBRANCE

On Monday, June 9, 2014, at 12 noon, all members of the Santa Monica College community are asked to join together in a moment of silence in memory of the lives lost in last year’s tragic event.

Carlos Franco was our colleague. We remember him as a devoted father and husband, and for his dedication to work and family.

Marcela Franco was our student and Carlos’s daughter. We remember her for her intelligence, outgoing nature, and determination to become a clinical psychologist.

Margarita Gomez was our neighbor. We remember her for her radiating smile and her commitment to those less fortunate.

COMMUNITY EVENT — “HEALING OUR CITY”

Three local parishes—St. Anne’s, St. Clement’s, and St. Monica’s—are sponsoring an interfaith community event on Saturday, June 7, 2014 on the anniversary of the tragic shooting in Santa Monica.

Titled “Healing Our City,” the interfaith event invites community members and civic leaders of all faiths to join for a day of healing and peace to reflect on lives lost, unite around a common goal of peace, and act for positive change.

A liturgical service will be held at 8 a.m. and the interfaith prayer service will be held at 9:15 a.m. A reception follows, along with a call to action for gun violence prevention. All are welcome.

Women over 40 are transitioning to start new companies. This article features several YPO and WPO women CEO’s and the trend for women to be entrepreneurial. By Meir Atton for Ignite Magazine.

Debra Fine, Fineline Foundation founder, is one of the YPO CEO’s who was featured.

‘”(YPO/WPO) Pacific U.S At Large:
A former Disney Executive, Debra Fine, has launched several media companies. She is now involved in a startup marketing consultancy helping to devise, implement, growth strategies for consumer goods and media companies. She’s also leading a foundation to help victims of violent crimes. “I like to be in the game”, she says. “What drives me is a sense of restlessness but mainly passion and vision.”’

What it is
Worry dogs you constantly for no logical reason, and you imagine terrible things happening to you. Or maybe you’re fearful about taking trips or going to parties or meetings. If so, you might have generalized anxiety disorder. People with GAD experience “uncontrollable worrying,” says Peter Norton, PhD, director of the Anxiety Disorder Clinic at the University of Houston. Symptoms include chronic nervousness, trouble sleeping, and fatigue.

Why it happens
Some 7 million American adults—twice as many women as men—have GAD. There’s a genetic connection: Children of anxious parents are far more likely to develop GAD. Though traumatic events can trigger anxiety, mysteriously, it may also strike out of the blue. A goal of treatment is to ease the symptoms so they don’t interfere with your life.

Massage
This heavenly therapy slows the release of stress hormones, such as cortisol, which are linked to anxiety, says Tiffany Field, PhD, director of the Touch Research Institute at the University of Miami School of Medicine. Her research found that a month of weekly 20-minute massages lowers cortisol levels—”a very good objective index of anxiety,” she says—by 31%. Massage also causes a relaxation response, which eases anxiety. (FYI: Many day spas offer 20-minute chair massages for around $20.) Or you can practice self-massage using a tennis ball, suggests Dr. Field

Exercise
“Exercise makes you pay attention to its sensations, such as breathing faster, and the things around you,” says Jasper A. J. Smits, PhD, professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Austin. “It helps you disengage from worry.” In one study, he found that exercise slashed anxiety in half.

Cognitive behavioral therapy
CBT helps you “evaluate how you think about danger and teaches techniques for reevaluating the degree of that threat,” says Dr. Norton. You learn to shift your worry to match the actual amount of danger, he adds. In one review, 46% of people whose anxiety was treated with this talk therapy responded, versus 14% of those who received no CBT. You usually engage in an hour-long session every week for 3 to 4 months; insurance may cover it.

Drugs
For chronic anxiety, your doctor may prescribe a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor. SSRIs, such as paroxetine (Paxil) and sertraline (Zoloft), affect serotonin levels and can improve mood and lessen anxiety. It takes 4 to 8 weeks to see if the drug works for you, says Franklin Schneier, MD, a professor of clinical psychiatry at Columbia University. Tranquilizers, including alprazolam (Xanax), may cause dependency, so they’re usually prescribed for short-term use for problems such as fear of flying. “These work almost immediately,” says Dr. Schneier. Discuss anxiety drugs’ side effects with your doctor; never combine tranquilizers with alcohol.

Herbs
Taking kava for 6 weeks eased anxiety for 26% of people with GAD in a 2013 study. Research shows that it’s effective for up to 6 months. Kava is available in capsules and liquid tinctures; follow label directions.

Sleep
Norwegian researchers discovered that sleep-deprived people are more likely to be anxious. Here’s why: “Sleep loss activates areas of the brain that are also activated during anxiety,” says Jack B. Nitschke, PhD, an associate professor of psychiatry and psychology at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine in Madison. To ward off the willies, aim to get 7 to 9 hours of sleep each night. Dr. Nitschke suggests stepping away from electronic devices 30 minutes before bedtime and jotting your worries down on paper.